then was the messenger to fetch Merlin,
and he is there these three days now, and saith he will fetch that
water though he burst the globe and wreck its kingdoms to accomplish
it; and right bravely doth he work his magic and call upon his
hellions to hie them hither and help, but not a whiff of moisture
hath he started yet, even so much as might qualify as mist upon
a copper mirror an ye count not the barrel of sweat he sweateth
betwixt sun and sun over the dire labors of his task; and if ye--"

Breakfast was ready. As soon as it was over I showed to Sir Ozana
these words which I had written on the inside of his hat: "Chemical
Department, Laboratory extension, Section G. Pxxp. Send two of
first size, two of No. 3, and six of No. 4, together with the proper
complementary details--and two of my trained assistants." And I said:

"Now get you to Camelot as fast as you can fly, brave knight, and
show the writing to Clarence, and tell him to have these required
matters in the Valley of Holiness with all possible dispatch."

"I will well, Sir Boss," and he was off.

CHAPTER XXII

THE HOLY FOUNTAIN

The pilgrims were human beings. Otherwise they would have acted
differently. They had come a long and difficult journey, and now
when the journey was nearly finished, and they learned that the main
thing they had come for had ceased to exist, they didn't do as
horses or cats or angle-worms would probably have done--turn back
and get at something profitable--no, anxious as they had before
been to see the miraculous fountain, they were as much as forty
times as anxious now to see the place where it had used to be.
There is no accounting for human beings.

We made good time; and a couple of hours before sunset we stood
upon the high confines of the Valley of Holiness, and our eyes
swept it from end to end and noted its features. That is, its
large features. These were the three masses of buildings. They
were distant and isolated temporalities shrunken to toy constructions
in the lonely waste of what seemed a desert--and was. Such a scene
is always mournful, it is so impressively still, and looks so
steeped in death. But there was a sound here which interrupted
the stillness only to add to its mournfulness; this was the faint
far sound of tolling bells which floated fitfully to us on the
passing breeze, and so faintly, so softly, that we hardly knew
whether we heard it with our ears or with our spirits.

We reac